Australian Game Developers - Lobbying for more Funds

August 20th, 2007, 19:29

It seems the Aussies are at it again, trying to convince the Gov't to help pay for Game development. Maybe other countries should join in. Here's the full text.Tax credit would bring in $5m extra a year, says GDAA

The Game Developers Association of Australia has written to the Government's arts minster and opposition minister demanding that the state extend its generous film tax credits scheme to include games studios.

A letter sent last week and forwarded to Develop follows up from a previous call by the GDAA and requests the Government urgently respond to the call.

Those making films in Australia are granted a 40 per cent tax rebate, and the association wants developers to get the same treatment.

"We have a commitment to ensuring that participants in the interactive entertainment industry are equally competitive with our overseas competitors," says the letter from Greg Bondar, executive director of the GDAA.

In this regard, the Australian game industry is currently not operating on a level playing field either internationally but particularly domestically."

The letter points out that similar tax credits in Canada have helped its local market, and estimates that a similar scheme for Australian games developers would result in around $5m new investment being made in local developers per year.

He added: "The electronic game industry is a significant contributor to the Australian economy. It is also part of a larger global entertainment industry (now bigger than film) and a major export industry." More information.

Originally Posted by Gorath
Government funding for prototypes can make sense because it increases the devīs chances to get a deal with a publisher.

Yeah, I was being flippant. Seed money for 'incubation companies' tends to work pretty well, whether funded through government or private consortium. It is subsidizing existing companies that becomes a problem.

I wonder if a gov't funded project to make a graphics engine or middleware exclusively for Australian companies to use would make sense. That would greatly reduce the costs of development for the next several years. However, I can't see a gov't bureaucrat thinking of that and Australian companies being interested in much beyond their own gain.

The Aussie film industry began to take off when the Gov't offered tax incentives to investors (something like (200&#37; originally, I think ), so doing something similar for game development could also work!!

Well european arthouse cinema would be impossible without tax money. So if we want art and videogames to meet, that's probably the only way it would happen. Of course most european arthouse films are pretty much unwatchable. On the other hand, every now and then something really moving and unique comes out of it. So within the right structures, why should governments not also support game developers?

By the way - the government isn't throwing money around, it's (potentially) just giving a tax break. I got the impression that there was a fair bit of support in the government for this, but who know which way a bunch of old has-beens will end up voting.

Can you believe it.

August 22nd, 2007, 16:15

It is a covert beg for more sumphole cash, not just a tax concession.

This is the true cringe factor about Australia. It's difficult to believe that anybody could be that big a pathetic communist bastard to suggest the public should pay a tax levy to pay failed game developers to produce lousy games that nobody buys.

There is no industry with lower startup costs than the software industry in general and in particular computer games have the lowest imaginable initial investments given the hefty and generous returns on a game that is even semi-playable.

If you smell a marxist rat here, your nose is working well.

Nobody should ever pay creative people to write games that are not worth funding as private ventures.

It may sound a little too personal … but there is no shame at all in being a failed game developer. If you have the tenacity to finish something you believe in and get it out there, you're to be commended irregardless if it doesn't sell well. Just finishing a game is honor enough in itself. On the other hand, there is probably nothing more vile than a failed communist game developer who thinks the public should keep paying him money like a sad academic klown to just indulge his whims knowing in advance no such game will ever appeal to anybody, including the idiot leeching the public purse.

Communists are sad people with sickly grins and nervous sweat on their foreheads desperately trying to shift responsibility for their sorry failures in life to others, including the financial costs of their stupid decisions. Milton Friedman was right about them - they know in advance they are going to fail in life and thus always appeal to the State to take others people money by force and give it to them. They know their market value as human beings is effectively zero and act accordingly.

I'll bet I know the guy who is pushing this initiative too. He's a cockroach with humanoid features who has been running one failed socialist fiasco after another on the Gold Coast for ten years now without ever turning a profit. His games don't even end up in the budget bin, even the budget bin has standards. They end up given away free on coverdisks because no one would ever buy them.

Some would say it is organized theft by the State. People who are not sociopaths. NMobody with any self respect would claim to be a game developer and demand subsidies to start up a game idea.

Cleve Blakemore

I wonder if a gov't funded project to make a graphics engine or middleware exclusively for Australian companies to use would make sense. That would greatly reduce the costs of development for the next several years. However, I can't see a gov't bureaucrat thinking of that and Australian companies being interested in much beyond their own gain.

Tons of cutting edge graphics engines out there now for less than $1000.00, yet the bums involved need a government loan even for that? Baloney, if they had any good ideas they'd find the money.

IF you had any idea of what kind of gay orgies have been paid for by the Aus taxpayers for bogus game startups doomed to failure (cough*Aurion*cough) run by staggering morons, you'd never want them to get a penny ever again. Gazillions spent on catered lunch and sportcars by guys who could not write Tetris with GameMaker 4 to save their miserable lives.